Read Online Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 04] - Love's Duet by Patricia Veryan - Free Book Online

about her brother!
Ladies, shall we leave?"
    The ladies stood, the gentlemen pulling back their chairs and
promising to join them very shortly. Clay ushered them to the door, and
Thompson began to remove the covers. The Earl leaned closer to Damon
and grumbled softly, "That hurt, if you must know, Cam. Caught me right
on the blasted shin bone!"
    "Apologise. But we don't want Feather nosing about, do we, Ted?"
    Ridgley paled. "Gad! You're right, of course. She'd be here forever!"
    As the last notes of "Eine Kleine Nachtmusick" died away, there was
a moment of quiet in the music room. Sophia was deeply moved, as music
had the power to move her. The Marquis of Damon played magnificently.
She joined the enthusiastic applause, the men rose to their feet, and
Genevieve ran to embrace her cousin.
    Feather, seated beside Sophia, fumbled for her handkerchief and
dragged it fiercely across her eyes. "Wretch!" she growled. "He plays
so divinely, and weeping women always make me want to cast up my
accounts!"
    Struggling against a laugh, Sophia said, "Then he should never play."
    "God forbid! I look forward for weeks to the time I can hear him—and weep. Silly great creature that I am!"
    "Let's have something else!" cried Ridgley eagerly.
    "It grows late, and you've all had tiring journeys." Damon shot a
mischievous glance at Sophia and added "And other— wearing experiences."
    Sophia contrived to maintain a look of complete unawareness.
    "Besides,"—Miss Hilby nodded—"you must be up early, Camille, in case his grace arrives."
    Damon gasped, and the Earl stared at the beauty as though her copper curls had become writhing adders.
    "Your… your pardon, Charlotte?" Damon stammered.
    "You expect your Papa, do you not? In London, the Duke told me
distinctly he would visit you within the month. I rather gathered it
would be this week."
    Sophia and Clay exchanged tense glances.
    Damon took a deep breath and said, "I hope not—since the bridge is out."
    "But your working men will have it newly made by tomorrow, you say—no?" asked Genevieve.
    "Perhaps, my lord," murmured Sophia innocently, "your Papa could stay with us at 'The Gold Crown'?"
    "What?" Feather exploded. "You're never throwing us out, Damon?"
    "Not tonight, of course, dear ma'am." His face betrayed only
affection. "But longer, I am persuaded, would be unendurable for you.
The workmen are here from dawn to dusk, you see, for we are renovating
one room at a time. And—"
    "And are no sooner opening the door to us than you wish us gone—is
that it?" The eyes of the formidable Feather were angry, yet also held
hurt.
    Damon spread his beautifully expressive hands in a gesture of helplessness.
    "Of course, it is not, Feather." Miss Hilby clasped one of those
outstretched hands. "Stop scolding him so! He'll not banish us from his
gloomy—and now isolated—old dungeon. Will you, Camille?"
    A long look passed between the two. It was a romance beyond
doubting, thought Sophia. But surely the lady was too old for him.
'Five and thirty if she's a day.' Still, she was certainly lovely
enough to follow in the wake of his beautiful French mistress, and—
They were all smiling at her. "Oh! Your pardon!" she gasped. "I was
woolgathering. How terribly rude of me!"
    "Not at all, m'dear," said Feather kindly. "I was only telling my
fiendish nephew he cannot heave us all out of his ruins since it would
be improper for you to be without a chaperone while you await your
brother's arrival."
    "But, dearest of Aunts," said Damon, "Whitthurst is an invalid, and
the Priory's swarming with noisy workmen all day! Not salubrious, you
see."
    "Then stop 'em!" rasped Feather. "The Priory's been mouldering for
centuries. Won't collapse if it has to wait a few days to get its face
lifted."
    "Whitt must be improving," Ridgley put in absently, "if he can
survive riding all this way through a howling storm. Surprising. Felt
certain he was going to turn up his toes, but—" He stopped as Feather
dug an elbow into